What if NJ Transit Actually Served New Jersey?

New Jersey Transit mostly exists to get people from the hinterlands to and from Newark and New York; you can also go to Trenton, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City.

The European Union, population density 109 per km2, supports a rail network that goes even to the tiniest towns, via high-speed rail and a gazillion local lines.

New Jersey, with 488 people per km2,  has more than four times the population density of Europe, but only the tiniest fraction of the rail network. It turns out I’m not the only person who imagines a more robust rail system.

Reddit: creolefish

Here’s the thing, though: this is still a commuter system with NYC/Newark and Philadelphia as the hubs. 

New Jersey is already among the states with the lowest number of cars per capita, at 674 cars per thousand residents. The European Union, despite all those trains, averages 567 cars per person — not so different from New Jersey. But we drive almost twice as far every year than they do — 14,263 miles per year, on average, compared to Europeans’ 12,000 km, or 7440 miles, per year.

(Montana, on the other hand, has almost two cars for every person in the state. Including children. How do they find the time to drive them all?) 

Connecting all of New Jersey without having to transfer in Newark or Secaucus would take only two more rail lines, each starting at the Hudson River in the north, and running west, south, and finally east to the Atlantic Ocean.

The inner ring would go from Stevens to Stockton, with stops at Montclair State, Seton Hall, Monmouth, Georgian Court, and the community colleges in Essex, Union, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean counties. 

The outer ring would run from Fairleigh Dickinson to Atlantic City, by way of the community colleges in the north, east, and south of the state, with a stop at Cape May.

It would transform the state.

• The availability of public transit would increase access to college. Low-income students can study at community colleges around the state for free, but the effective tax is that they need cars to get to class. Driving cheaper, older cars means less reliable transport on top of more repair bills, plus car insurance and gas.
• Reducing by even a quarter the average amount New Jersey residents drive every year would cut tailpipe emissions by more than 3 million metric tons: New Jersey has 2.5 million cars whose owners drive them, on average, 12,263 miles every year, emitting, on average 5 metric tons of carbon dioxide each, or collectively 12.5 million metric tons of CO2.
• Lower-income residents rely on an outrageously slow bus network to get to work and run errands; replacing these bus lines with trains would speed their trips dramatically (and get yet more vehicles off the roads).
• If half the people who went to the shore on a summer weekend could easily ride the train, they’d get to spend more time swimming, flirting, and eating ice cream, and less time stuck in traffic and hunting for parking. With only half the traffic on the roads, the drivers would get there faster, too.
• If teenagers could take a quick train ride to meet up with friends in the next town, we could worry a whole lot less about them driving under the influence.
• Roads with fewer cars are safer for pedestrians and cyclists. And making biking safer would reduce driving even more: almost 40 percent of the time someone gets in the car, they drive three miles or less. A leisurely three-mile bike ride to go to work or run an errand takes fifteen minutes — barely enough to break a sweat. And spending 30 minutes a day on a bike instead of driving and parking makes people healthier and happier.

Less road rage. More time for exercise. Lower emissions. More leisure time. Can we afford NOT to upgrade the system?